Advice on Waterproofing Pools and Bathrooms Tips

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Advice on Waterproofing Pools and Bathrooms Tips
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1. Trim an appropriate-sized notch in the corner of the bead cleanup tool, using the graduated markings. 2. Snip the tip of the caulk tube with your utility knife. Cut the tip at an angle so that it can fit flush in the seam between wall and tub. (If you plan to use the bead head, it doesn't matter how you clip the tip.) 3. Attach the bead head, if you're using one by screwing it onto the tube tip. It will create its own threads. 4. Pop the tube into the caulking gun and pump the trigger until the caulk oozes out. Clean off any excess. 5. Start in a corner where two walls and the tub meet. Place the tip of the caulk tube into the corner. Applying a steady pressure and lay the bead in the seam until you get to the opposite wall or some other stopping point. Go slow and try to do an entire wall at once. 6. Use the bead cleanup tool to remove the excess caulk from the bead. Do this by placing the notched edge of the tool in a corner and then following the seam with the tool until the seam ends. Hold the tool so that one side touches the wall, the other the porcelain; the notched corner should be flush with the bead. The excess caulk will accumulate in the L-bend. 7. Get rid of the excess caulk, then use the damp rag to remove any caulk on the porcelain or tile surfaces. The caulk should be moist enough to wipe up easily. 8. Repeat this process for all the other interior seams. Then, if necessary, caulk the exterior seams between the floor and the top of the tub. 9. Before it dries, you can drag a wet finger across the caulk to smooth it out if it looks a little uneven. 10. Allow the caulk to cure for at least a day (preferably longer) before using the bathtub.

Congratulations, you've done it. Your bathtub is neatly caulked, and you don't have any excess caulk to fight with later on.

Pool repair putty is a handy-dandy kneadable specialty epoxy that mixes in less than a minute. It is used to make permanent repairs to damp, wet areas and underwater surfaces. Pool repair putty bonds solidly to fiberglas, metal, wood, concrete, ceramic, glass, and most plastics, including PVC. Once it hardens, it can be drilled, tapped, sanded or painted. Pool repair putty hardens to a bright white in 20 - 60 mins.

If you have a vinyl-liner pool, you have probably noticed that after a while it sags or gaps at the track that holds the liner in place. This is caused by constant fluctuations in temperature over the winter which can cause the vinyl to stretch and pop out at certain spots (usually at corners or where there is plastic trim in a concrete deck that meets with the pool coping). Most of the time you can pull the vinyl up and snap it back into place in just a few minutes. Just follow these simple steps:

• Boil a kettle of water • Pour the boiling water directly on the sagging vinyl. To make things easier, have someone pour on the boiling water, while you pull the liner into the track. • As the hot water softens the vinyl, pull the vinyl up and into the track. • Use a flat head screwdriver to help hold the vinyl in the track as you pull the vinyl up and into place. • For longer splits use wooden clothes-pegs, broken in half and placed along the split every few inches.

Plumbing fixtures (including dishwashers, disposals, toilets, sinks, water heaters, showers, clothes washers, pools, tubs and other enclosures) can have pipe joint or hose attachment failures and develop leaks. Leaks inside walls may go undetected for some time and result in significant damage. Want some good advice on waterproofing pools and bathrooms? To avoid these potential problems, inspect any potential leak sources on a regular basis. If you spot a leak, repair it, or have it repaired immediately.

You may be able to handle the little cracks in your concrete or fiberglass pool, but you should leave the big stuff to the pros. For any cracks in either kind of pool that are wider than 1/8 inch or longer than 1 foot it will pay to hire a pool care professional. You can find a qualified pool care professional through your local chamber of commerce, Better Business Bureau or court records. Of course, if you come across any contractor with a lot of past court cases against it, just keep looking.

Your in-ground swimming pool can be seen as "underground concrete water tank", which means that if you want to waterproof it, you're going to need coating and sealants that can withstand lots of "negative hydrostatic pressure", or under-ground water pressure that passes through the substrate (your concrete pool) and presses on the back side of the pool coating. To repair hairline cracks in concrete pools use a coat of the proper chlorinated rubber or epoxy swimming pool paint. In fiberglass pools, you don't need to bother repairing tiny hairline cracks. They just mean that your fiberglass pool is weathering away naturally. If this advice on waterproofing pools and bathrooms sounds like Greek to you, you better hire a professional or you may end up doing more harm than good!

Everyone has advice on waterproofing pools and bathtubs. Want our two cents? Caulking a bathtub is simple, if you stay away from the strip. Strip caulking that comes in a roll. It looks tempting, but it comes off too easily and it's hard to apply. You'll do best to stick with tried and true tube caulk. But take care. Tube caulk can be messy to use.

Try to do a neat job in the first place and spare yourself the grueling task of trying to clean hardened smears of caulk from porcelain and/or tile surfaces.

You'll need the following to caulk your bathtub right:

1. A caulking gun 2. A tube of caulk 3. A sharp utility knife 4. A bead head 5. A bead cleanup tool 6. A damp rag (it should be disposable)

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